


Taste The Darkness in the Air

by Chispas_and_broken_bindings



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Jonsa Halloween, a little bit gothic, haunted corn maze
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chispas_and_broken_bindings/pseuds/Chispas_and_broken_bindings
Summary: In which Sansa gets dragged to a haunted castle by her evil siblings...and runs into a certain member of the Night's Watch in the corn maze.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 74
Kudos: 136





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreams_for_spring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreams_for_spring/gifts).



_Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there_

_wondering, fearing,_

_Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream_

_before - Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven_

When Robb drove them past yet another billboard advertising what she had assumed was a new horror film, Sansa squinted into the sun and her stomach dropped. "Taste the darkness in the air at the Nightfort... Robb! Are you taking us to a haunted house?" She reached across the center console to pinch his elbow, and he grinned sheepishly back at her.

"Well, technically it's a haunted castle…"

Ayra and Theon cackled in the back seat. "It's the most haunted place in the north, and they open the castle doors once a year, only under a full moon." Arya poked her head between them, a deranged look of glee plastered on her face. 

"Please tell me tonight is a waning crescent."

Arya's Cheshire grin was all the answer she needed. 

"I hate you all." 

"The grounds are family friendly until sundown," Robb hedged, and Sansa punched him in the arm. 

"The sun goes down soon, you jerk! You know that I hate being scared."

"Don't worry, Sansypants. It'll be fun. We'll get some cider, make our way through the corn maze, and then if you want to hang back and pick out some decorative squash while Arya, Theon and I do the haunted castle thing, no biggie." 

"No biggie? You expect me to wait, alone, at night… at a haunted castle?"

"I could hang back with you… maybe we could find a quiet spot in the woods?" Theon's face wedged next to Arya's, and Sansa pulled her sunglasses back over her eyes to glare out the window again. 

"Hard pass." Her siblings were the worst. She shouldn't have bothered coming home for fall break. But if she had stayed in the dorms, she'd get dragged out to parties by Margaery, and then she might run into the ex, and she wasn't ready to see the selfish, cheating asshole again. 

When they crested the next hill, the castle loomed ahead, a black jagged mouth gnawing at the pale blue sky. Sansa shuddered at the thought of exploring its grim halls in the light of day, let alone after dark with dozens of North State theater kids running around the castle dressed up as wights and axe murderers. 

By the very full parking lot, spilling into a muddied field, hers was a minority opinion. Luckily, Robb seemed to have told the truth about the grounds being family-oriented. An extensive area made up the typical seasonal fare, with a large pumpkin patch, a petting zoo, and even a blow up castle for the little ones. In the center lay a quaint, log cabin style visitor's lodge with a roaring fire in its large hearth and a concession stand selling hot cider and Sansa's favorite; cinnamon apple donuts. While the others roamed the castle, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to cozy up in a worn leather chair by the fire.

Once they were loaded up with their sugary provisions, they wandered back out into the afternoon sun, leaving the land of strollers, red nosed children and painted wagons full of pumpkins behind. There was only one way into the castle, through what a sign claimed was the largest corn maze north of the Trident, and already there was a sizable line of teenagers and young adults waiting to be allowed in. 

"You promised the maze was family friendly," Sansa glared at Robb.

"Sansa, you're nineteen years old! Look, there are kids going in right now who look about twelve," Arya pointed out what did indeed look like a group of prepubescent boys handing over their tickets to a bloodied knight manning the entrance. 

"So? I don't like to be scared. Is that a crime?" 

"It's just a bunch of dudes in makeup," Robb squeezed her arm. "And the sun is still out. The website said they don't start officially haunting the maze until sundown. Like I said, we'll get through it before then."

"But it ends where the castle begins. I don't want to explore the Nightfort, especially under a full moon."

"Are you even a Stark? That's the best time to do it!" Arya whooped, startling the couple ahead of them, who had been too busy making out to notice the line had moved forward. "They say that under the Hunter's moon, the Night's King emerges from the castle in search of his corpse queen."

"What?" 

"His blue-eyed Other lover... duh." Arya had clearly been reading up on the history ahead of this little road trip of theirs. She launched into a graphic description of the Rat Cook’s prince-and-bacon pie and Sansa felt a niggling of guilt along with her revulsion. She hated being the frightened buzzkill of the group. _Still, they should have warned her, right?_

"There is a hayride from the maze exit back to the lodge," Robb assured her. "You don't have to go in the castle."

Still, Sansa couldn't shake the feeling that every step forward diminished the likelihood she was escaping this evening fright-free. Every minute they waited in line was another minute closer to the sundown. _You're overreacting,_ she told herself. No one else seemed freaked out by the prospect of the corn maze, and admittedly, it was a beautiful fall day. The sun blazed over the field before them, making the dried stalks of corn look like a sea of gold, and the warm air was sweet with the smell of applewood burning in a distant bonfire. 

It was even nice to be around her siblings, as deranged as they were, with their love of all things horror and gore. She often felt like the odd one out, especially since she moved away from home, so it _was_ nice to be included in one of their schemes. Her brothers treated Arya like one of the boys, inviting her to their weekend camping trips and fantasy football leagues, while Sansa shared little with her brothers besides red hair and blue eyes. She shared even less with Arya, her brazen sister. 

But today she was along for the ride, and for about ten minutes it all felt pretty perfect. When Theon tried to hit on her with yet another tired cliche, Sansa didn't even have to respond before Arya went off on him with a savage takedown and Robb joined in the thrashing and all Sansa had to do was sip her cider and munch on her donut and enjoy the sun on her face. Theon didn't appeal to her at the best of times, and in this particular moment, when she felt generally salty about the male species, he was even less palatable than usual. 

They reached the front of the line just as she swallowed the last bit of crumbly spiced nourishment, and the breeze blew a little cooler, and the sun inched a little closer to the horizon, and the dour, ticket taker in the chintzy, "blood-soaked" armor had to force her ticket from her hand. 

"The maze isn't 'haunted' until after sundown, right?" she asked him, flicking her eyes into the sun. "And how long does it take to get through?" 

"Do I look like a medium, or a GPS?" he shrugged her off, turning to take Arya's ticket, and his companion, standing just beyond, laughed at her, raspy and low. Sansa glared up at him, disconcerted to find a frustratingly good-looking guy staring back. Dressed like a man of the Night's Watch, his dark, trendy man-bun and gothic getup kind of suited him in a broody, Byronic sort of way... if one were into that kind of thing. 

Sansa usually wasn't.

"The hunt begins at sunset," he said, and the rasp of his voice thrilled her, sending goosebumps snaking up her arm. 

"When _is_ sunset?" she asked. 

"Don't worry, Sansa. We've got time." Arya dragged her away from the cool grey eyes that watched her as she turned into the maze after the others. "Plus, how hard can it be?"

\---

A half-hour later, and their third pass by a droopy scarecrow covered in cheap plastic birds, and they had their answer. Several turns had gone by since last they'd crossed paths with anyone, and the corn was too high to pinpoint the sun's distance from the horizon, or their distance from the castle. 

"I don't like this," Sansa said for the hundredth time, and Arya rolled her eyes. 

"Me either. I'm out," she took off in a sprint, as the boys yelled after her. 

"Arya! Wait!"

"Last one out has to do dishes on Sunday night! And I mean _all_ of them!" she yelled over her shoulder before disappearing left at the coming fork, her last words floating back down the darkening path. "Even the pots and _pans_!"

"That brat! I'm not even invited to Stark Sunday dinners," Theon grumbled. 

"Well, you can still come over and do dishes," Robb teased him. "We might even save you a slice of pie."

Sansa huffed, kicking a fallen stalk. She _knew_ this would happen. Now she was stuck with tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumbest, who argued with each other at every turn. At this rate, Arya would be through the castle and asleep before the fire, by the time they made it back to the lodge. Sansa should have parked herself at the entrance and made eyes at the man in black until her siblings returned. A bit of harmless flirting could help get her over The Ass™. It's not like she'd ever see the crow cosplayer again. 

"Let's just cut through the corn," Theon suggested, as Sansa looked down at her phone. _One bar._ She walked a little further, chasing the signal. Maybe there was a map she could snag online.

"Cut through the corn?" Robb asked. "How is that going to help?"

_Two bars... wait. Back down to one._

"Easy, we'll just pick a direction and follow it."

"And when the sun goes down... what then? We'll just get more turned around."

"We're already turned around…"

"True. So which way then?"

Sansa looked up. They were at a fork. She looked back down at her phone. No signal and a dying battery. _Of course._ "So, it's ten minutes to sundown, guys. The castle is due north, which I'm pretty sure is _that_ way...no, wait _._ It's _that_ way. We just need to stay on the path and weave our way in that direction as much as possible... Okay?"

_Silence._

"Guys?"

The path behind her was empty. She must have walked a little further from the boys than she realized. "Robb? Theon?" She rounded the bend. Empty. _They were right there_. "Haha… okay? You've had your fun. Come out of the corn."

The scarecrow hung before her once more, its faceless visage mocking her. 

"This really isn't funny, Robb!" she raised her voice, and a few actual crows rose from the strawman's arms, flapping their black wings unnervingly close to her face, before cawing in a lazy circle overhead.

She backtracked another few yards. _They're just being punks, trying to scare you._ But the path was eerily silent again, and several more minutes passed with no signs of her brother or Theon. Robb wouldn't take it this far. _Arya and Theon?_ _Yes_ , but Robb had a conscience, _right?_

Regardless of intent, she was going to murder all three of them when she got out of here. Until then, she'd just have to buck up and head north alone. _You're a Stark_ , _and the sun hasn't set yet._ She followed the path toward the castle at a clip, determined not to be bested by a bunch of nerds with fake swords. She would not be _that_ girl. 

Except the sun _was_ setting. The path seemed to narrow with the dying light, and the air grew chilled. She emerged into a small clearing; a perfect circle, with five paths to choose from. "Five?" she muttered. "Do they even want anyone to reach this stupid castle?" _Just pick a path. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, catch a tiger-_

In the distance, a dog howled... and then another, and another. 

Then came the blaring of the horns. 

  
_The hunt begins at sunset_ , he had promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween Jonsa fam!
> 
> This is my attempt at spooky, as inspired by Sonderlust45's lovely mood board and the prompt "Fear".
> 
> I'll be posting Chapter 2 tomorrow, on Halloween.


	2. Chapter 2

_It was an icy sensation,_

_a despondency, a nausea in the heart,_

_an irremediable sadness of thought that no stimulus of the imagination could propel to the sublime_.

\- _Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher_

Sansa drifted through the labyrinth alone. An oppressive gloom pervaded, like a low-hanging cloud. When a shriek rent the air, rousing a dull terror within her, she jolted out of her daze. It didn't sound close, but her senses were twisted within her narrowed tunnel of earth and dead grass. A chainsaw buzzed to life and more muffled cries reached her from even further off. She backed along the path, peering through the stalks for any hint of life, her fingers grazing the brittle bars beside her. When her hand met air, the heel of her boot took an icy plunge. For a moment, the mud refused to loosen its hold and her sock soaked up the cold water. 

"Ah!" She turned, finding her way blocked by a wide pool. A blood-red moon leered back at her, reflected in the water's smooth surface, surely too high in the sky for the hour. But her phone was dead, and with it, any tether to time or place. 

There was no telling its depth, but the water was too wide to jump in the dress she had insisted on wearing, despite her siblings multiple hints that jeans were a more suitable choice for their mystery drive. _At least I wore sensible shoes_. 

She had no choice but to return to the clearing and pick another path. The next two she chose were dead-ends after only a few turns. Yet, they ate up time and any reservoir of calm she had stored beneath the moon's shadow. When next she entered the cursed circle's crosshairs, a fine mist hid the ground, its tendrils winding up her bare legs. 

_It's fine. This is meant to be scary, but nothing here is real._

_It's just a farm field, crawling with harmless dudes in makeup... and a fog machine._

But she could not contain the erratic beating in her chest, nor the panic clawing up her arms. "I smiled for what had I to fear1?" she whispered, forcing herself to walk down the next footpath, ignoring her muscles screaming for her to run. The queue to the maze had been long. She'd link up with another group making their way to the castle soon enough. 

A wolf howled.

A twig snapped. 

She heard a wet smack like a slab of meat hitting a counter, and her palms throbbed. Heavy, labored breathing, not her own, plugged her senses. _This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real._ But the form materializing in the mist before her, certainly was, and by the grotesque hump at its back and spitting snarls, it wasn't another tourist trying to find their way out of the maze. 

When it lunged forward, all sense left her, and she fled. 

_Left. Left and left again._ She made it back to the clearing just as the werewolf howled, but Sansa was fast; racing down the last path, her lungs burning, blind with terror. 

"Argh!" she tripped on an untied lace, landing heavily. Scrambling to her feet, she spared a glance back, terrified to see the whites of her pursuers eyes. It howled again, lurching toward her with a guttural moan, and the scream she'd been swallowing escaped at last. 

Sprinting, she craned her neck over her shoulder as she rounded the next bend blindly, and crashed into something solid, that molded to her at once with a deep, masculine grunt. Before she could pull back, her new assailant had her by the arms and without so much as a "by your leave", he was dragging her through the corn. 

"Hey! Let me-" she started, but a calloused finger pressed hard against her lips and she stilled. If she were Arya, she'd have already kneed her captor where it counts and taken off, but Sansa just stared up at the shadowed face as her eyes adjusted and she recognized the commanding eyes and haughty smirk of the Night's Watchman from earlier. Again, she opened her mouth to speak, but his grip tightened, drawing attention to where she was flush against him in the narrow cavity between the dense stalks. 

The slathering beast drew level with their hiding spot, and her savior tilted her chin toward the path, his breath ghosting over her ear. "He's no wolf." And it was true. The fog of fear lifted, now that she was safely ensconced in the shadows, and she could see her pursuer for what he really was; a scrawny guy in chuck taylors with sloppy patches of fake fur glued to his face, wearing what looked to be a faux sheepskin thrown over a backpack and a bluetooth speaker hooked to his belt loop, projecting the tinny calls of a werewolf. 

He straightened out of his hunched stance, pulling a clawed glove from one hand, before turning off his sound effects and grabbing a walkie-talkie going at his side.

"The Babadook for Teen Wolf. Do you copy?" a pitchy voice called over the speaker.

"This is Teen wolf, Over."

"What's your 20? Over."

"I was chasing down a little red riding hood in Quad 4, but I just lost her. Over."

"Sorority sisters are falling out of their dresses in Quad 2. Fly in and get a piece of the meat. Over."

"What about Red? She's pretty far from grandma's house. Over."

"Do you want in on this or not? Over."

"Okay okay. Flying in, but if we get another 911 call, you're taking the fall tonight. Over."

"Roger that. Over and out."

Teen Wolf retreated, carrying the sounds of his cheap speaker with him and Sansa shook out her disgust. "Ugh, he is somehow more creepy as a man than a wolf."

"He is a rather pathetic creature. He does a disservice to wolves in imitating them." Her cloaked companion stepped back, clearing a way for her back to the path.

"And what about you?" She gave him a once over, noting the good fit and quality of his own costume that highlighted his lean form. "Are you a credit to the Night's Watch? Should you not be shielding the realms of men, instead of frightening poor girls in the night?"

"Those who could speak to my character are long dead, my lady, so you must trust my word that my intention is not to frighten you," he said, and anticipation pulsed down her spine in response to his dark gaze. "That wouldn't serve my own desires." He bent down on one knee, reaching for her untied laces. "Where does your path lead you?"

"To the Nightfort, obviously." She drew up her skirt a few inches to aid his task, and a fevered chill swept up her leg where he grazed her skin with his knuckles. 

"The path has led you astray." A cloud masked the moon, briefly obscuring his face as he looked up at her. "Allow me to lead you to my castle." She didn't know what to make of his refusal to break character, but she found she didn't mind. That's what people paid for at these types of attractions, after all; a few hours of escape from the mundanities of modern life. If this maze attendant realized she'd prefer a bit of gothic romanticism over campy gore and cheap scares, then good on him, and extra good for her if he'd agree to escort her out of this mess. 

" _Your_ castle?"

"Aye. My castle." 

"Then, shouldn't you be haunting me instead of helping me?" she teased.

"Who's to say I can't do both?" He took her hand with an arrogant turn of his lips and she found herself charmed. Perhaps he was in the fine arts; maybe an acting major. There was something in his confidence that made it easy to slip beneath his spell. So, with an unflinching heart, she abandoned herself implicitly to his lead. 

"And what am I to call you?" she asked, appreciating the way the blue moon cut against the elegant planes of his face.

"You won't find my name in any history books, though my men called me Lord Commander, for a time."

"And after that?"

"After that, they called me King."

She laughed. "Well then, lead on, my liege." This earned her a gentle squeeze where his icy fingers were still entwined with hers. "Though, you look awfully young to command the Night's Watch."

"I was named the thirteenth lord commander at the age of thirteen... and for thirteen years I reigned." They had reached the circle again, and Sansa frowned when he turned down a path leading towards a dead-end. 

"Hm, well you've stumbled upon the wrong Stark sister if you were hoping to reveal yourself with riddles. I'm not up on my Night's Watch history, I'm afraid. Also, I've already tried this way," she started, but he tugged her forward, anyway. 

"Oh, I believe I've found exactly whom I was seeking, and as I said, the history books have forgotten about me. My tale lives only in legend, and while some seeds of truth remain, the nuance has been squeezed from its flesh. Do you trust me?" He released her hand abruptly, but kept his palm out in invitation.

"Not really. No." Though, she traced her fingers along his heart line, and his sprung around her like a trap. 

"Good. You shouldn't." 

When they rounded the corner, where she was sure a wall of corn should have blocked their way, the path instead opened to a small clearing of dead earth before a twisted copse of pale, gnarled trees with bare ghostly branches reaching for each other in an intimate grotesquery. 

"But how can this be?" she asked, turning in a confused circle. "I went down this path before." The wind rose, sending husks sweeping at them from the field in a fury. Her new protector shielded her in his heavy cloak, shrouding her in a darkness heady with the bittersweet smell of leather and longing. 

"Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you2," he whispered against her brow. "Come my lady, my castle is just through these trees." He released her, and though the night was calm once more, an icy current swept her up in its torrent. 

"The Night's Watch had no kings," she shivered, staring into hooded eyes, a potent dread pulsing through her veins.

"They had one."

Arya's stories from earlier came rushing back, and Sansa's heart stuttered. "So you're meant to be the Night's King, then?"

"I am what I am, whether it was meant to be or not." His voice rasped.

"You're a coy one," she stepped forward, prodding his chest. "You are no credit to the Watch. You betrayed your vows and committed horrific crimes. I'd have been safer left to my fate with the werewolf with the walkie talkie."

His lips were a promise as he leaned into her wielded finger. "I'll not deny it, though every crime, I committed in the name of love."

"Love?"

"Aye, I fell for a woman with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars," he wrapped one hand around her own cold, pale fingers and with the other, he thumbed a loose strand of hair from her cheek. Her heart leapt to life once more. "She was my downfall and my glory. I chased her and caught her and loved her and though I paid for it with my life and with my soul, I'd do it all again for one more touch of her wan fingers in my own; for one more taste of her cold, sweet lips." The bite of certainty was on his breath and Sansa closed her eyes in terrible hope, but an owl cooed from the shadows, and he retreated once more. "In the end, my men betrayed me." 

"I know something of betrayal," she conceded, struggling to recall hazy memories of a sandy-haired boy with a dimpled smile who broke her confidence, if not her heart. 

"What mortals dared to cross your sun?" Grey eyes pierced her, and she moved away from their smoky lure, trying to shake loose that which was just out of reach. She circled the trunk of an enormous oak, and with the living wood between them, clarity swam up before her eyes. 

"My siblings abandoned me tonight," indignation warmed her. "They dragged me here as some twisted excuse at sibling bonding and then left me alone for what I can only imagine was a misguided attempt at fun."

"Shall I smite them down for you, fair one?" 

"No...though, if you ever cross them, maybe just give them a fright?" Sansa mused, rounding the trunk to face her cryptic king, but the forest floor where last he stood was clear.

Once more, the owl cooed. 

Once more, she was alone beneath a hostile moon. 

\-----------------

1\. Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

2\. Friedrich Nietzsche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never one to make a deadline, I humbly submit the second chapter of my indulgent little gothic ghost story later than promised and I'm extending it to a 3 part arc. 
> 
> Please don't judge Arya, Robb and Theon too harshly. Even our favorite Starklings are no match for a centuries-old supernatural spirit, who may or may not be pining for his long-dead wife. 
> 
> Happy late Halloween everyone! I hope to have part 3 up in the next day or two, so hopefully everyone is in a spooky mood for a little longer yet! Thank you for the lovely comments so far. I'll be sparing in my responses as I don't want to spoil anything.


	3. Chapter 3

_On this night of all nights in the year,_

_Ah, what demon has tempted me here?_

_\- Edgar Allan Poe, Ulalume_

Sansa's skin was cold marble beneath the icy moon. Branches overhead painted thick, dark veins across her arms. All warmth and color had been leached from the lifeless earth. Wind caught her by the skirt, pulling her deeper along the dim path, dry dead leaves tumbling with her through the woods. 

"I cannot believe he left me." She muttered, her breath an icy puff.

A chill snaked up the back of her neck. 

"Miss me so soon? I was away but a moment." She turned, and there he was, leaning against a tree, a smug shadow, the burnished hilt of his sword gleaming like real metal. "I've waited in darkness for my love to come back to me since the Wall was young and magic flowed through the arteries of the north like the blood flows in your veins." He launched forward, reaching for her hand to run elegant fingers across her inner wrist. "Fie on the impatience of youth."

"Where did you go?"

"To do your bidding."

She felt he was subtly mocking her with those cool grey eyes and strangely ageless face. He could be seventeen or thirty for all she could discern, staring back at him in petulant silence. 

"Then you failed," she said at last. 

He tilted his head to the side, a dark curl breaking free from its stay. "How so?"

"I've asked only two things of you; to lead me to the castle and to scare my siblings. You have yet to accomplish the first," she twirled, staring up at the dead trees. "And you couldn't possibly have fulfilled the second. You left me for only a few minutes, yet I heard no nearby screams."

"You assume I am bound by your rules of time and place," he chuckled. "But you make a fair point, nonetheless. Your blood freezes in your veins, out here in the yard. That won't do. Let's get you to my castle." He unclasped his cloak and without preamble, he draped the heavy thing around her, wrapping it tight around her bare shoulders. "What were you thinking, girl, wearing nought but a slip in the night?"

She rolled her eyes, feigning indifference even as her skin flushed where he thumbed at the thin strap over her collarbone. "The day was warm, and I never intended to be out at night. It is Robb, Theon, and Arya's fault."

"Their fault, and my reward. I assure you, my lady, they regret ever stepping foot near my castle."

"Oh?" 

"Yes, the boys cry like babes, even now. The dark one, however… has more mettle." 

Though there could be no truth in his words, Sansa, drowning in the heavy fragrance of his cloak, found she preferred the lie. _By the light of day, he'd be an ordinary man_ , she thought, _but this night is his to rule_. 

She floated behind him, beneath the twisting branches, milk-white in the moonlight. He was all slender grace, and when a cloud passed over, he'd disappear into the shadows, only to re-emerge bright and cutting beneath the light once more. The maze of trees gave way at last to crumbled ruins, and their feet exchanged the leafy rustle of the forest floor for the muffled thud of leather against the timeworn cobbles. Before them, the castle rose; a jagged specter against the black night. 

"She looks bare without the Wall around her," he stopped, gazing up. "The ice hugged the stone, and everywhere the two would meet, magic sealed their bond." As he spoke, fog coalesced around the castle, and for half a moment, a vision of ice rose around the ruins. "Magic lingers here yet, waiting in the deepest recesses, where mortals fear to tread."

Her guide leaned against a rusty grate, its metal grating like teeth against the stone, and Sansa grabbed at the thought it shook loose.

"Speaking of mortals, where are the others?" she asked.

"What others?"

"Well, you know," she struggled, her mind like sand slipping through her fingers, "the others seeking the castle, like...like my siblings...and everyone haunting it. Your co-workers." She felt a strange pride, remembering the dour knight at the entrance. "Shouldn't we converge with them now that we're near the castle? And where is the wagon?" 

"The wagon?" He turned to her, his face an icy mask. "My _co-workers?_ " 

"Well, not to group you with the wannabe werewolf or anything but…" 

The disdain he could convey in the twitch of his lips was truly impressive. 

"Is that what you want?" He looked back and there was a threat she hadn't felt before, though he stood still as stone, his words barely carrying in the wind. "To be among those fools once more?" All at once, sound came rushing to her, and her vision briefly narrowed, as if she'd been underwater too long, only now breaching the surface. Suddenly, she could hear shrieks and laughter above the jarring echoes of cheap sound machines coming from the other side of the castle. 

"Well, I really should head back to the lodge and meet up with my siblings."

"The siblings who abandoned you?"

"A nasty prank for sure, but my phone died. By now, they must be worried sick…"

"You told me you sought the Nightfort." His voice was a blade.

"Because... the wagon is waiting there, to bring me back..." The moon shifted, casting his face in stark relief, his eyes receding in dark sockets as bone protruded just beneath his paper white skin. "I'm sorry if I have misled you.." 

"And here I thought that _I_ had misled _you_. Will you elude me yet?" He loomed close, and she sighed, for his face was sharp and alive with malevolent beauty.

The world quieted around them once more. 

"Well, the lodge has apple cider donuts... and a roaring fire. What can you tempt me with down this path?" She brushed against him and through the gate he'd opened, suddenly reluctant to end their little game.

"Join me, and I'm inclined to make you my queen." She felt his gaze burn as she let the cloak slip from her shoulder. Glancing back, a thrill of excitement lit within her at the promise in his gaze.

_Let her siblings worry a little longer._

"Only a fool would refuse such an offer."

"You are no fool," his breath clouded over her bare skin, a frozen peril. "But I cannot say that you are wise."

"Oh? Then, what am I?" she palmed his thigh, where he pressed behind her. 

"Fair and lovely," his lips burned like ice against the slope of her shoulder and he blazed murmured kisses up her neck, "with eyes like blue stars." He pulled back, too soon. "Come, let us not linger here. The moon wanes." He righted the cloak, but it did not warm her as they passed together beneath the castle's shadow. 

A terror filled her, staring up at the black stone, its paneless windows and ruined walls gaping back at her in inky menace. Yet his fingers tempted her out of her gloom, playing up her wrist in hungry anticipation. 

They passed under a heavy vault, down worn steps leading beneath the castle. 

"Dungeons are no place for a queen." She protested, and he pacified her with a kiss. 

Conquering her scruples, she chased his lips, demanding more. He baited her with a hard-pressed smirk, but she rolled forward with another tremulous sigh and when at last he opened to her, she burned brighter than any moon. When they broke apart, the pallor had receded from his cheeks and his eyes were bright as his chest heaved beneath her bone-white hand. 

"Once, I roamed these vistas with my soul and we marked not the night of the year," he pulled her after him at a feverish pace, through cracked openings and over fallen columns, deeper into the heart of the castle. She could feel it throb around them in a fervent beat. "The crisis… the danger is past, and the lingering illness is over at last-"

"What illness?" she was breathless, trying to match his stride.

"A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my-" he stopped, and she collided with his back in her haste. Ducking beneath his arm, she gazed wild-eyed at a monstrous weirwood growing through a long conquered hole in the floor. 

"Where are we?" she asked. The room, what remained of it, was a stone octagon with a domed roof. In the center there was a large well, a faint glow emanating from its depths. 

He turned from the tree, grasping her arms almost desperately, and a dread pooled under her tongue. "We loved with a love that was more than love," he rasped, tall and gaunt and terrible. "But they bore her away from me."

"Who did?" she asked, and he clawed at the cloak, raking it from her. "I don't understand-"

"Come, we are running out of time." He dragged her toward the pulsing glow, and shuddering, she pulled back. 

  
"Wait-"

"No," his grip was cold metal, cutting to the bone. "I've waited long enough."

She cried, flailing to catch hold of one of the weirwood branches, reaching for her in grim futility, before he pulled her under. 

"You shudder to look at me, but my heart is brighter than all the many stars of the sky," he hauled her into his arms and she sobbed, beating weakly at his chest as he carried her down the shallow steps of the well. 

_Down._

_Down._

_Down._

"Please, let me go." Her voice was a hoarse whisper by the time he stopped their descent. When he tilted her tear-streaked chin up to face him, he was beautiful once more. _A strange and awful splendor, with eyes bright as blue stars_. 

"Do not fear, my love," his voice was a melody she couldn't hold. "For neither the angels in heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever dissever my soul from thee."

Gently, he placed her on her feet before the source of the spectral glow. A shrunken, baleful face with cataract eyes glared at her from the white weirwood door. 

"Who are you?" It croaked, and she clung to her tormentor in terror.

"Just a little further, my love," he pecked at her pallid lips. "Open the door, and you'll never be alone again. Open the door, and I'll lie down by your side forevermore."

"How?" she traced trembling fingers over the deep wrinkles in the wood, an inevitable melancholy drumming up at her through the ancient stone. 

"Say the vows," icy fingers rapped a pulse at her throat.

She gazed into his face once more. "And if I do, you promise that you'll love me?"

"I'll never stop."

"And you'll be loyal?"

"We already share a soul." He was radiant under the ghastly glow, but death was in his eyes. Fearing nothing, she chased his kiss once more, and when she caught him, his teeth scraped her lip, and they blazed against each other in a wild fury. When he turned her toward the door once more, she was aching and weary.

"I... I do not know the words," she confessed, and she felt the rumble in his chest as he wrapped himself around her in another chilling embrace.

"I am the watcher on the walls…" He led, and she followed. 

"I... I am the watcher on the walls," her lips were stiff and bruised, but as she spoke, the gate grew brighter and brighter. 

"I am the fire that burns against the cold,"

"I am the fire that burns against the cold," a memory rose like a song within her as she recalled the next line, "the light that brings the dawn…"

He scraped at her depths, "the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men."

When the last words passed her frozen lips, the gate was almost blinding in its glory. 

"Then pass," the ancient weirood's mouth parted, stretching wide in a grotesque yawn, wider and wider until nothing remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Her vision blurred and she could not make sense of the shifting forms beyond. 

The Night's King released a great, shuddering breath at her cheek, his arms vibrating around her in ripples and waves. "Tonight, my heart is light," he whispered. "Come, come my love. Our kingdom awaits."

A river calmed within her, and her heart stilled its shallow beat. "After you, my king." She pressed her wan fingers to his fevered cheek, reveling in the velvet of his touch. "Enter, and I will follow with an unflinching heart."

But her heart was cold, and her limbs heavy. When he crossed through the gate's mouth, her fingers slipped from his. From above, she heard a faint call. 

_Sansa!_

"Come, my love," he reached for her. 

_Sansa! Are you here?_ The voice was stronger, and her legs buckled.

"Just one step more," he pleaded from across the threshold, and she stopped her last breath. "No, my love... just one step more." But her lids were heavy and her body shorn of strength, even as metal clashed against the stone overhead. 

"You promised," she whispered.

"Do not fear, my love," but his voice was too far away. "I will find you."

"I hear something. This way. Sansa! Sansa! Is that you?" A frantic call echoed down the well. "My god! I see her! I see her! She isn't moving! Come quickly!"

  
_How sweet_ , Sansa thought, to hear her sister's voice once more as the darkness claimed her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This story has turned into a journey. It started as a one chapter frolic and turned into a novellette of over-indulgence in Gothic Romance. Credit where credit is due...this story is obviously heavily influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, and I lifted many words and lines from his poetry, especially in this chapter. You will see a heavy mix between Annabel Lee, For Annie, Ulalume, and Lenore. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy and thank you for all of the lovely comments left so far!

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween Jonsa fam!
> 
> This is my attempt at spooky, as inspired by Sonderlust45's lovely mood board and the prompt "Fear".


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